Settling Down: Mesa Verde

The shady side of a repair shop was our home for the next 7.5 hours. We pulled (almost) the whole family out, so they guys could drive Bessie around, put her on the lift and tinker around. We met a sweet man named George, and a lovely pisces named Mary. They were there separately - Mary with her husband. We had some nice conversations. George was just enamored with Tetra, so much so that I insisted he hold her. Mary was more into dogs. We heard all about how she saved her dog with a prayer line, and then we talked about astrology - specifically Aries.

By the end of the day, we came to a solution with the Chinook. Bessie lost her “old fat cow” status thanks to Pat and his team. A lot of credit is also due to Mark and my dad who brainstormed with us through the process, and to Matt who kept our repair requests on track. When we left Moab, we took that 6% grade like a charm. It was magical.

We headed to Mesa Verde. The drive was nice. We saw a few tin houses sparsely located through the route. As we got closer, and through most of our Colorado journey, we saw quanset hut after quanset hut. For those of you who may not know, I am in love with the idea of living in a quanset hut. I will live in one, or have one for a shop - one day. It will happen.

We reached Mesa Verde about 7pm. We climbed the green table as the sun was setting, and the landscape was breathtaking. We secured a lovely campsite without hookups at the National Park, and Matt mentioned right away that he’d be happy here for a few days.

I was pleased. I went to Mesa Verde with my parents and brother when I was about 10. I don’t remember every detail, but I do remember really enjoying it. I wanted to revisit it to see why I loved it, and I wanted to share it with Matt.

After a night filled with marshmallow madness, we cursed the bottom sheet and cozied up in the Chinook. —So bottom sheets are a pain in the ass anyway, but putting them on a bed when you have no standing access to any of the corners is dumb.—— We will be buying another top sheet soon to replace the bottom sheet with.

The next morning, I was feeling poopy. Matt was full of energy though, and took care of everything that we would normally share responsibility for. By the time he and TJ were ready for a nap, I was feeling better and was able to pack up and clean up so we could leave the site. It was such a nice site. It was hard to leave.

After a stroll through an archaic museum, and a yummy lunch under the shade of a juniper tree, we were ready for our tour of Cliff Palace.

The picnic table for our site was not very accessible.

The 45 minute tour of Cliff Palace was fun. It only cost $4/person. Our ranger said that Cliff Palace was probably a religious site, but Matt and I have decided that it was probably a learning site. The reason it’s regarded as a significant gathering place is because the room to kiva ratio is way off the norm. There a huge number of kivas, and they have strong theories to suggest that kivas were used as a gathering place for ceremony, learning, and other group activities. I think they said that descendants of the cliff dwellers still use kivas today. Another new bit of knowledge is that they no longer call the cliff dwellers “Anasazi.” It was just a word some visitors chose to call them. The cliff dwellers were ancestors of the pueblo people, so signage everywhere says, “Puebloean.” There is a lot to see and do at Mesa Verde, and on the way out, we agreed that we could easily stay a week here. We will be back, with an older TJ some day.